


Fall in

by devera



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Episode Tag, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-17
Updated: 2012-01-17
Packaged: 2017-10-29 17:00:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/322111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devera/pseuds/devera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They weren't so very different - only the choices that they made.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fall in

**Author's Note:**

> A brief character exploration in the wake of the Episode "Foe". I love John's dry, droll sense of humor, and Finch's almost-affectionate coolness, and the way they interact. And I'm fascinated by how they might struggle to maintain their humanity in the face of what they do every day, how they kind of hold on to each other to anchor themselves through it. I was also quite taken with the torture scene in this episode, and what kind of impact it may or may not have had on John's psyche when he identified so strongly with Kohl. I know I maybe haven't captured all of those things here as well as I wanted, but it is my first POI fic!

It might seem ridiculous but it is in fact business as usual, except that this time instead of staring down the barrel of a gun or into the eyes of a cold blooded killer he’s staring at the glass in his hand and the warm, amber liquid settled in it. Perhaps it's not as deadly a decision, for a change - whether to drink it or not - but it's still his decision. He wonders what that says about him, that he would buy himself a drink when he's not sure he even will yet.

He stares at the glass, turning it in his hand so that the angles cut into the crystal catch the lights over the bar, so that the liquid trembles with the shake of his hand, the result of nerve impulses still firing in random, uncontrolled bursts down his arm. His skin is a sickly yellow-blue around his elbow under the protection of his suit jacket, the muscles in his shoulder and his jaw ache and his fingertips are still prickling. He’s pretty sure there’s no long term nerve damage but he has no idea how he kept his hand steady enough to shoot Kohl tonight, how he even raised his arm; he just did because there hadn’t been a choice.

Which is what it’s all about in the end, he thinks: choices and living with them. You make them every day and you can’t ever see where they’ll leave you – a deep, dark hole and a trail of bodies; a hotel room in Mexico and a promise that will never be fulfilled. He doesn’t regret his choice tonight, what little choice he’d had, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t regret the necessity of it. The Company broke him like the Stasi broke Kohl but Finch and his crusade have been doing a surprisingly good job of putting him – Reese – back together, of giving him some kind of purpose worth staying alive for. Does he deserve it? And if he does, didn’t Kohl? After all, they weren’t really all that different, and Kohl had made his choice – absolution in death. There’s enough humanity left in John to be grateful that tonight is a case of _There but for the grace of God might have gone I_ , but then again there’s also just enough left to want a drink when he’s had a kind of really bad day.

Once upon a time he wouldn’t have thought twice about it; he’s been drinking for far longer than his recent socially challenged lifestyle might have led people to believe. And it’s not that he’s made any kind of deal with himself now that he’s working again. He’s just... flirting with fate. Perhaps this choice isn’t as important as some but for a moment he at least can sit here and enjoy the fact that he can make it. He can put the glass back down on the bar, where the bartender is cleaning glasses and doing a really bad job of not watching him; or he can toss its content down the hatch, down that deep dark hole that he inhabited up until a few months ago before he found a way out of it, before a way out of it found him.

Which is when a third choice presents itself, unlooked for – his phone buzzing in his hip pocket. He dips his other hand into his other pocket and pulls out the earpiece, slides it on over his ear and answers the call. He never much liked having only two choices anyway.

“Hey, Harold,” he says. Well, it’s not like anyone else has his number.

“Mister Reese,” Finch says by way of greeting. “How are you?”

The question throws John for a second. Usually Finch’s greeting is followed by ‘I have a number’; John has to readjust his thoughts to allow for this variation.

“Fine,” he drawls, putting the glass back down on the counter but not letting go of it quite yet. The glass is cool against his fingertips and he can smell the whiskey he’s still thinking about drinking.

“Mister Kohl’s wife and daughter have been delivered safely to the authorities,” Finch begins, so perhaps his curiosity concerning John’s state of health was merely a glitch in the system, so to speak. “I don’t believe they’ll give them much information about us and I’m confident the former Mrs. Kohl will know how to handle any difficult questions.”

“That’s good, Finch,” John tells him, and he’s glad that something decent can come of tonight at least. Maybe it was Kohl’s last good deed, from a man no longer capable of them. That has to count for something. At least, John hopes it does.

“And I spoke to Detective Fusco,” Finch continues smoothly, his voice as calm, as cool as the glass sliding against John’s skin. “He mentioned you and Mister Kohl had been having a talk when I sent him to find you earlier.”

John smiles humourlessly to himself. He’s fairly sure that’s exactly what Fusco hadn’t said.

“I suppose you could call it that,” he agrees. “It involved a lot of gaffer tape and sharp objects. Not bad as first dates go. Could have gone better.”

The bar tender looks at him at that, and John waggles his eyebrows at him, unable to help himself.

“Which is why I’m asking,” Finch repeats calmly, completely ignoring the joke, “how are you?”

John lets go the glass finally to flatten his palm on the varnished wood of the counter top, in order to stop the slight tremor still showing itself in his hand and jerking in an irritating tic under his skin.

“I’m a little... twitchy,” he admits. “Nothing a decent night’s sleep won’t fix.” He doesn’t mention that he’s fairly sure he hasn’t had a decent night’s sleep in years. He’s also fairly sure that Finch probably knows that.

Over their connection, Finch sighs, barely audible.

“And alcohol isn’t terribly conducive to that, now is it, Mister Reese.”

It’s not a reprimand, not really, and John’s not really surprised that Finch somehow knows where he is right now either.

“Harold,” he drawls again, inappropriately pleased. He turns in his chair, slides off the seat to his feet, unfolds enough bills from his otherwise bare wallet to cover the drink and flips them onto the counter next to his glass. “Are you stalking me again? That’s so sweet.”

“I’m concerned about the structural integrity of a valuable asset,” Finch corrects coolly, but he’s not fooling John when he sounds like he’s trying to fight his own amusement, before his voice turns serious again. “Do you need a doctor?”

“No,” John denies as he lets himself out onto the street out front of the bar. He doesn’t think he does, but then again he’s never been tortured with Chinese medicine before. Mark that one down as a first.

“You’d better not be lying to me, Mister Reese.”

The ridiculousness of someone all of five foot eight who probably can't get up off a couch without struggling a bit actually threatening him makes John grin, not unhappily. On one hand Finch is in all honesty kind of terrifying, but on the other there’s something in John that would really love to see what he’d do. He has no idea why the idea of annoying Finch in these small ways entertains him so much, especially when he so rarely wins, but he doesn’t plan on stopping it, and he likes to think Finch would be secretly disappointed if he did.

“If I’m still jumpy tomorrow, I’ll do something about it,” he concedes, still smiling. “How’s that sound?”

There’s silence for a moment – Finch seriously considering his bargain which makes John grin again.

“Acceptable,” Finch finally agrees, in that oddly bookish way he has of speaking sometimes, like a computer but with a hell of a lot more personality. “Providing you go home now.”

“All right, all right,” John laughs lightly, turning on the sidewalk towards the apartment building he’s staying in under one of the numerous aliases Finch generated for him. “I’m going, see? Home like a good little boy.”

He can almost see the way Finch’s eyebrow arches above the sharp rim of his glasses at that. “Yes, I can see,” he says dryly, and John hunches into his coat a little more.

“Thanks, Harold,” he says, and maybe he doesn’t quite know what he’s thanking him for – sending Fusco after him today, or coming after him in the first place, or maybe just for calling to check on him. Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe Finch gets it anyway.

“No, Mister Reese, thank you.”

Finch’s call cuts off, and John pockets his ear piece and keeps walking, and doesn’t miss that drink he left behind.


End file.
